Water 1ac as of Aug 2

Plan:

The United States Federal Government should increase funding to $50 million for Public Law number 109-121* including but not limited to Integrated Water Resource Management, for United States Agency for International Development initiatives in Africa.

• Commonly known as the Water for the Poor Act

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Observation One: The Water Crisis

Water sanitation problems in Africa cause millions of deaths annually
United Nations Development Program, 11/9/06 (Press Release: World Water and Sanitation Crisis Urgently Needs a Global Action Plan, http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/gpg/2006/1109humdev.htm)

A Global Action Plan under G8 leadership is urgently needed to resolve a growing water and sanitation crisis that causes nearly two million child deaths every year, says the 2006 Human Development Report, released here today. Across much of the developing world, unclean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict, according to the Report, entitled Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis. Each year, the authors report, 1.8 million children die from diarrhoea that could be prevented with access to clean water and a toilet; 443 million school days are lost to water-related illnesses; and almost 50 percent of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by a lack of water and sanitation. To add to these human costs, the crisis in water and sanitation holds back economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa losing five percent of GDP annually—far more than the region receives in aid. Yet unlike wars and natural disasters, this global crisis does not galvanise concerted international action, says the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR). “Like hunger, it is a silent emergency experienced by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it,” says the Report. With less than a decade left to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, this needs to change, stress the authors.

Lack of clean water and sanitation causes disease, political instability, diempowerment, poverty and war.

Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman of the Millennium Water Alliance. 5/16/07. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives One Hundred Tenth Congress First Session. http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/35429.pdf

Picture a baseball diamond. First base is life. No water, no life. Second base health. Safe water prevents disease and empties 50 percent of the hospital beds. Third base is education. Bad water in your body is like bad gas in your car, and the brain cannot learn without adequate supplies of clean water yet tens of thousands of schools all over the developing world lack clean water. Home plate is economic development. It takes three glasses of water to make a soda, a gallon for a hamburger, and 39,000 gallons to make a car but manufacture of each of these things are dependent on adequate supplies of clean water and each provides jobs which are important to the world. The P on the pitcher’s mound stands for peace. A strong military is a necessity in this world but our State Department’s function is to promote a sustainable peace. Please open the next slide. This was presented by a water minister of Egypt. Go to the next slide. Money cannot buy happiness but the total lack of it does produce severe unhappiness. People are living in extreme poverty—on less than $2 a day—because of the lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Dignity is lost and hope nonexistent. The lack of clean water leads to stagnant economies and failed states, leaving uneducated and jobless young men with no other opportunities who are prime for recruitment into terrorist cells. Two leading causes of frustration leading to terrorism in the world are shown on this slide as the lack of clean water and the lack of sanitation. The lack of clean water most severely impacts women though. I ask the question: Can only half of the people develop a nation? A Valentine’s Day clash over water—if we can go to the next slide— in drought torn Kenya claimed 20 lives, mostly children. Living Water International provided two peace wells. President Kibaki stated that all over the world struggles over water have been the trigger for war and clashes over water costs the lives of our own children but the President proclaimed that henceforth the provision of water shall become a trigger for peace in Kenya. Since this initiative, the Government of Kenya in 2 years has uadrupled the number of water projects by contracting out water projects to the private sector and NGO community. It is important that we take this concept of water for peace and expand it across Africa. Annual peace well dedications by the head of state in each country where the U.S. is funding efforts on potable water will be a powerful reminder of the importance of water to all for peace. The provision of clean water empowers indigenous people to become productive and lowers the overall cost of development. Nobel Laureate economist project an addition to the world’s economy of up to $34 for every $1 invested in clean water projects. What a business opportunity for America to improve our global world. We face a global emergency now. We need a decade-long commitment to increase funding each year until access to adequate supplies of clean water are available to all communities. We must not delay to stem the rise of uneducated people living in squalor without the economic opportunities afforded by this liquid of life.

Unfortunately, the United States has drastically under prioritized water initiatives in Africa. The Water for the Poor Act provides an opportunity for the US to use its unique expertise and experience to create sustainable solutions to Africa’s water crisis.

Lochery, Director of the Water Team, CARE, 5/16/07. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives One Hundred Tenth Congress First Session. http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/35429.pdf

The passage of the Water for the Poor Act presents an opportunity around which the US can bring expertise gained through programs in other regions of the world and significantly expanded funding to bear in sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy required by the Act also helps address gaps in responding to the African water crisis. These include: designating high priority recipient countries toward which funding should be targeted; determining which of those countries are truly committed to instituting the necessary reforms and enhancing accountability to their citizens; developing a system of measurable goals, benchmarks and timetables for monitoring US foreign assistance; and coordinating assistance with other donor countries. The US Government should also focus on complementary activities to strengthen civil societies’, governments’, and the media’s capacity to scrutinize their water and sanitation sector and demand that money be used appropriately and effectively. This capacity building will benefit not only the country receiving aid by ensuring that water and sanitation services are being delivered as they should be, but also the US as it will encourage the careful use of foreign assistance funds. The US response to the African water crisis to date has been inadequate in relation to the scope of the problem and the impact that expanding access to water and sanitation services would have in addressing many other developmental challenges. Although the US government took an important step by passing of the visionary Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, the current system of policies and institutions in place is not conducive to the US developing and implementing a shared, prominent and responsive agenda adequate to the task of making meaningful change in the water and sanitation sector in Africa. The first State Department Water for the Poor Act Report, which was released in June of 2006, was extremely useful in understanding where and how US resources are being spent in the water and sanitation sector. However, it only met one of the seven broad requirements of the Act and focused on water resources as a whole, rather than exclusively on safe drinking water and sanitation as outlined in the legislation. The Report also provided a summary of current US water programming, rather than laying forth a comprehensive strategy. The information presented in the Report revealed that in FY 2005, a bulk of US funding went to countries and regions of strategic interest (like Afghanistan, Iraq, and the West Bank and Gaza), while only roughly $15 million in sustainable water supply and sanitation funding went to sub-Saharan Africa, indisputably one of the areas of greatest need. The Report also counted the amount spent in the emergency sector—which, depending on how you count, receives over 50% of total funding—toward what the US is spending on water and sanitation. While funding relief efforts is essential to saving lives, and an activity that the US should continue to invest in, emergency spending will only go so far in addressing the issue of sustainable access to safe water and sanitation, particularly when there are limited funds for the transition from relief to development. There is no substitute to increasing funding for developmental water and sanitation, which is why the Water for the Poor Act explicitly called for the US to help ‘‘expand access to safe water and sanitation in an affordable, equitable, and sustainable manner.’’ The facts that have come to light with the release of the first State Department Water for the Poor Act Report indicate that US funding must be significantly increased to fill the gaps in addressing the water and sanitation needs of Africa and other under-served areas. Furthermore, they underscore the need to elevate water and sanitation as an explicit priority in order to truly realize the vision incorporated in the legislation.

Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is inevitable absent water reform – water scarcity and inequitable water systems are the root cause of impoverished conditions

Randolph Barker , economist at the International Water Management Institute, with Barbara van Koppen, Department of Irrigation and Soil and Water Conservation at Wageningen Agricultural University, and Tushaar Shah, Principal Researcher at the International Water Management Institute, “A global perspective on water scarcity and poverty: Achievements and challenges for water resources management”, IWMI,
2k http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/pubs/WWVisn/WSandPov.htm

Poverty eradication through sustainable development can be regarded today as perhaps the central goal of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), of most agricultural research and development institutions in the developing world, and of the national governments that support their research. Irrigation has played a central role in poverty reduction in the past. But the growing scarcity and competition for water and the overexploitation of groundwater resources are putting the poor in irrigated areas at great risk. In addressing the poverty problem, we must consider the impact of reduced water availability for irrigation not only on crop production, but also on the wide range of other uses that are a part of the livelihood of rural agricultural communities. Meanwhile, poverty persists in many of the rain-fed and upland areas, the so-called marginal or traditionally water-scarce areas. In these areas, the inability to effectively mobilize water resources has prevented farmers from using modern yield-increasing inputs and raising incomes. There are two regions of the world that stand out in terms of the scope and magnitude of rural poverty—South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. They could not be more contrasting in terms of water resources and irrigation development and hence the challenge posed to International Water Management Institute (IWMI) scientists and others for poverty alleviation. In South Asia close to fifty percent of the cereal grain area is irrigated. Two-thirds of cereal grain production and most of the marketed surplus comes from the irrigated areas. On the contrary, in sub-Saharan Africa the contribution of irrigation to cereal grain production is about 5 percent.

Poverty is the worst form of violence – it kills more people than a nuclear war.

Abu-Jamal, prominent social activist and author, ‘98
[A Quiet and Deadly Violence, Sept 19, http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html ]

The deadliest form of violence is poverty. --Ghandi It has often been observed that America is a truly violent nation, as shown by the thousands of cases of social and communal violence that occurs daily in the nation. Every year, some 20,000 people are killed by others, and additional 20,000 folks kill themselves. Add to this the nonlethal violence that Americans daily inflict on each other, and we begin to see the tracings of a nation immersed in a fever of violence. But, as remarkable, and harrowing as this level and degree of violence is, it is, by far, not the most violent features of living in the midst of the American empire. We live, equally immersed, and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging "structural' violence, of a kind that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness. Former Massachusetts prison official and writer, Dr. James Gilligan observes; By "structural violence" I mean the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of the class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting "structural" with "behavioral violence" by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. --(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence, not covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, ruling-class protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it--really? Gilligan notes: [E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. [Gilligan, p. 196] Worse still, in a thoroughly capitalist society, much of that violence became internalized, turned back on the Self, because, in a society based on the priority of wealth, those who own nothing are taught to loathe themselves, as if something is inherently wrong with themselves, instead of the social order that promotes this self-loathing. This intense self-hatred was often manifested in familial violence as when the husband beats the wife, the wife smacks the son, and the kids fight each other.

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Observation 3: Hegemony

US image is declining globally not because of hatred towards American values, but because the US appears to have strayed from its core values of promoting human rights and aiding poor countries. Showing a renewed commitment to the international community would reverse this trend

Dr. Steven Kull. Director, Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) Editor, WorldPublicOpinion.org. 3/6/07. “America's Image in the World” http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/views_on_countriesregions_bt/326.php?nid=&id=&pnt=326&lb=btvoc

In focus groups that I have conducted throughout the world, the most common complaint I hear is not about American values but that the US is being hypocritical; that it is not living up to its values. Complaining that the US is hypocritical is a backhanded compliment. The implicit statement is that if the US were to live up to its values this would be something positive. This support for American values has deep roots that go back to the period immediately after World War II. At that time US was so overwhelmingly powerful relative to the rest of the world that it would have been able to impose an American empire. But it did not do that. Instead the US championed a world order based on international law and said that it too would be constrained by this system. It endorsed a system built around the United Nations that prohibited the unilateral use of force except in self defense, and respected national sovereignty. It promoted democracy. It promoted respect for human rights within countries and in dealings between countries. It promoted an equitable and open system of trade and free enterprise that did not favor the strong over the weak. And through its aid programs it sought to integrate poor countries into the international economy. SK_Hill_poster5.jpgThere is substantial evidence that the values and the ideas for world order that the US promoted have become widely accepted. In 66 out of 67 countries polled for the World Values Survey, most agreed that “Democracy may have its problems but it is still better than any other form of government.” In 30 out of 32 countries polled for BBC, most people said that the UN is having a positive influence in the world. In 19 out of 20 countries polled by GlobeScan, a majority agreed that “the free enterprise system and free market economy is the best system on which to base the future of the world.” And there is no significant indication that support for these principles is in decline. The problem is that of late there has been a growing perception that the US is not living up to its principles. In a recent poll we conducted we found widespread perceptions that the US is violating international law in its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo. The US image as a promoter of human rights has diminished. In 1998, USIA found that 59 percent of the British and 61 percent of Germans said the United States was doing a good job promoting human rights. Today, 56 percent of the British and 78 percent of Germans say the US is doing a bad job. Contrary to the United States’ history of largesse, a Pew poll found that in 38 out of 43 countries most felt that US policies were worsening the gap between rich and poor, . But perhaps the most fundamental issue is whether the US is constrained in its use of force. This is why there is so much concern about the US invasion of Iraq. The complaint about Iraq is not so much that US forces removed Saddam Hussein. Rather it is that the US did so without getting UN approval; that it did not follow the international rules that the US is perceived as originally promoting. SK_Hill_poster6.jpgThis has left many countries uneasy about whether the potential use of US military power is constrained by the international system. While it may sound strange to Americans, in many countries around the world people express strong fears that the US will use military force against them. In virtually every country asked about this in polls done by Pew in 2003 and 2005, majorities perceived the US as a military threat to their country. This was even true of Turkey—our NATO ally— and Kuwait—a country the US has defended. It may be hard for us to understand how overwhelming US military power appears to other countries and how easily they worry that the US might use it. So in summary, the challenge we face in dealing with the recent upsurge in negative feelings about US foreign policy, is not that we need to convince people of the value of the principles the US has tried to promote in the world. The world is already pretty much convinced. This is a tremendous asset for the US. What the world is looking for is reassurance that the US is constrained by the rules that the US itself has promoted; that it is still committed to the rule of international law, to limits on the use of military force, to respect for human rights, and to fairness in the world economic system. Were people around the world to gain more confidence in US intentions and perceive the US as having a renewed commitment to the values we have successfully cultivated in the world, there are strong reasons to believe that attitudes toward the US could shift rather quickly in a positive direction.

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Current water assistance is perceived to be selective and political. Improving water supplies in Africa would improve US image and leadership globally

Petersen, CSIS, 2007 (Erik, “Below the Surface: U.S. International Water Policy”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 19th, http://forums.csis.org/gsi/?p=384)

As we scan the more distant time horizons, the dimensions of the water challenge will probably increase significantly. If you superimpose projections for rapid population growth on a map of the world, it will likely occur in those areas of the world that are already the most distressed when it comes to water. What are the two areas of the world forecast to have the highest population growth out to the middle of the century? Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. As monumental as the challenges are in those two regions, they do not stop there. Water looms large as a critical catalyst to—or constraint on—development in countries from China to Chile, India to Indonesia, Russia to Rwanda. By 2025, according to the United Nations, it is possible that more than 2.5 billion people will live in countries experiencing serious water stress. The aggregate numbers could rise even further if the effects of global warming and broader environmental degradation persist, as expected. For all these reasons, one would think that water would be a central component in U.S. foreign policy. Targeting water as an instrument of Washington's engagement with the rest of the world would enable policymakers to assist with humanitarian relief, strengthen human health, support other public health commitments (such as efforts to address HIV/AIDS), promote economic development, advance opportunities for girls and women, and improve the capacity of countries to protect themselves against drought, on the one hand, or floods, on the other. Furthermore, it would imply important commercial opportunities for U.S.-domiciled corporations working in water-related technologies and processes. Targeting water would also yield other geopolitical dividends—including removing what is a serious obstacle to stability and security within States to demonstrate leadership in the world at a time when its image has eroded so considerably. In short, a water-centered set of policies could represent a remarkable opportunity for the United States to "do good" while "doing well" when it comes to pursuing its own interests in the world. If that’s the theory, then the reality becomes all the more difficult to comprehend. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), U.S. official development assistance commitments for water supply and sanitation in 1999-2000 amounted to less than two percent ($165m) of total national assistance—the lowest (with New Zealand) of any OECD member state.1 By 2003-2004 the U.S. level had grown to $521m, according to the same OECD statistics, but the lion’s share of the rise was attributable to increased financial assistance directed to Iraq—and even at that level, total assistance was well below the corresponding level for Japan, the OECD leader in water spending. Of the water-related U.S. support not channeled into Iraq, moreover, a disproportionate percentage was allocated to the Middle East and not to regions such as sub-Saharan Africa where the problems are the greatest. In other words, politics are trumping need. Le plus ça change...

US influence in water spills over – it is key to our soft power in every other area.

CSIS, Sept. 30 2005 (Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Addressing Our Global Water Future” http://water.csis.org/050928_ogwf.pdf)

It is clear that water scarcity, water quality, and water management will affect almost every major U.S. strategic priority in every key region of the world. Addressing the world’s water needs will go well beyond humanitarian and economic development interests. Virtually every major U.S. foreign policy objective—promoting stability and security, reducing extremist violence, democracy building, post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, poverty reduction, meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, combating HIV/AIDS, promoting bilateral and multilateral relationships—will be contingent to some extent on how well the challenge of global water can be addressed. Because water is so integral to human life, many strategies to promote economic development or humanitarian relief (e.g., poverty reduction or HIV/AIDS relief) cannot be achieved without a recognized water component. Water projects can also strengthen democracy-building projects in areas where such projects are not well-received by fostering inclusive decision making and management processes at a local scale. A review of most post-conflict or unstable areas will demonstrate that water should be a key component in any short-term or long-term regional stabilization and reconstruction effort. Water also has significant implications for U.S. international economic policy. It is a key driver of economic stability and prosperity in a number of important regions across the world. As previously discussed, water has structural linkages with the agricultural, energy and industrial/manufacturing sectors and its availability and quality are therefore critical to prospects for growth and stability. Conversely, if the challenge of access and quality worsens, water could contribute to economic and financial instability and uncertainty. While the debate over water as a potential cause for war in the future states and reducing the possibility for conflict or tension between countries with shared water resources. Finally, water represents an avenue for the United continues, the fact remains that water scarcity and poor water quality are destabilizing forces that impact both economic and social stability. Facilitating cooperative arrangements over shared water resources not only diminishes these disruptive forces but also provides avenues for cooperation and political development in other spheres.

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US influence in Africa is key to every strategic national interest. Solving terrorism & AIDS and meeting energy and economic needs depends on good relations

J. Stephen Morrison. CSIS Expert in African affairs and global foreign assistance; crisis humanitarian programs; democracy and governance in Africa. May 2004. “Rising U.S. Stakes in Africa.” allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00010230.pdf

First, and arguably most profound, Africa has assumed a new, strategic place in U.S. foreign policy and in the definition of vital U.S. national interests. This shift moves the United States away from the past habit of treating Africa as a humanitarian afterthought and begins to reverse a decade-long decline in the United States’ pres- ence and engagement in Africa. This shift is driven by several powerful factors. Most obvious, September 11 altered the overall strategic U.S. conception of global security and forced a rethink- ing of how Africa fits, taking account of its special humanitarian, security, and developmental needs. The National Security Strategy of the United States of Amer- ica, issued by the president in September 2002, formally argued, in dramatic, unequivocal terms, that Africa had become vitally significant in the quest to combat transnational terror networks and their state sponsors. It made the case, on both moral and security grounds, that a special concerted effort had to be made to save and improve the lives of persons threatened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Perhaps less obvious, only after September 11 did the United States begin, ret- rospectively, to appreciate fully how five factors over the previous decade have steadily elevated the significance of Africa to U.S. national interests and, implicitly, stirred a historic challenge to the United States to respond in new, innovative ways. These drivers include HIV/AIDS, terror, oil, armed conflicts, and global trade. HIV/AIDS, terror, and violent war are raw threats. Expanding oil wealth, tied in part to U.S. investment and markets, is an opportunity to diversify U.S. imports from outside the Persian Gulf, but that opportunity could easily go bad and become a threat that worsens instability. The emergence of an African voting block in the WTO is a new factor that can impact U.S. worldwide trading interests, positively or negatively, as the most recent Doha round has demonstrated. The HIV/AIDS pandemic swiftly tore through eastern and southern Africa in the 1990s. Only in recent years has the reality of its destructive power, in Africa and beyond, become manifest, registered among senior officials on the continent, in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, and begun to generate serious action. Awareness has grown that in many high-prevalence countries the worst is yet to come, as the explosion of new infections in the 1990s translates into mass illness and death in this decade, along with a steep rise in demand for treatment. Further, Nigeria and Ethiopia, with a combined population of more than 200 million, stand at risk of rapidly escalating prevalence rates that, if not effectively stanched, could radically raise the numbers of persons in Africa living with the HIV virus. Also in the 1990s, Africa—and U.S. interests in Africa—came to live under a mounting threat of terror, manifest most tragically in the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. This threat did not materialize overnight. As in Afghanistan, it took root over several years in Somalia, a forgotten, broken place left behind for others to exploit. Nor did the threat fade after the 1998 attacks. It endured, and September 11 and the Mombasa attacks in late 2002 forced the United States to reconsider what is truly at stake and how to reduce the threat effectively. U.S. energy stakes in Africa climbed steadily through the 1990s because of the emergence of West Africa as a major supplier, current and future, to world markets. Today, as a historic boom phase of investment and production in Africa’s energy sector unfolds, the United States is challenged to begin reckoning with a future energy relationship with Africa far bigger and more complex than in the past, con- centrated among several poorly governed, unsteady states. The center of activity may be offshore, but distance does not insulate the energy sector from dysfunction or debility within Nigeria, Angola, and other energy-rich African states where inter- nal chaos, malgovernance, and external threats abound. Africa in the late 1990s and into this decade came to account for an estimated 75 percent of the world’s most conflict-prone countries and has generated 65 per- cent of global demand for peacekeeping. African conflicts have placed a persistent and costly claim on the leadership, resources, and time of the UN Security Council, the UN Secretariat, African powers such as South Africa and Nigeria, and Western powers such as Britain and France, which have led military operations into violent African crises, often supported by ad hoc coalitions.

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Without soft power hegemony will inevitably collapse – too many conflicts will fall outside of military control, guaranteeing foreign policy failure.
Nye, dean of the Kennedy school of government at Havard, 2003 (Joseph, “U.S. power and strategy after Iraq” Foreign Affairs, Jul/Aug)

The problem for the U.S. in the twenty-first century is that more and more continues to fall outside the control of even the most powerful state. Although the U.S. does well on the traditional measures of hard power, these measures fail to capture the ongoing transformation of world politics brought about by globalization and democratization of technology. The paradox of American power is that world politics is changing in a way that makes it impossible for the strongest world power since Rome to achieve some of its most crucial international goals alone. The Untied States lacks both the international and domestic capacity to resolve conflicts that are internal to other societies and to monitor and control transnational developments that threaten Americans at home. On many of today’s key issues, such as international financial stability, drug trafficking the spread of diseases, and especially new terrorism, military power alone simply cannot produce success, and it’s use can sometimes be counterproductive. Instead as the most powerful country the U.S. most mobilize international coalitions to address these shared threats and challenges. By devaluing soft power and institutions, the new unilateralist coalition of Jacksonians and neo-Wilsonians is depriving Washington of some of its most important instruments for the implementation of the new national security strategy. If they manage to continue with this tack, the U.S. could fail what Henry Kissinger called the historical test for this generation of American leaders: to use the current preponderant U.S. soft power to achieve an international consensus behind widely accepted norms that will protect American values in a more uncertain future.

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International goodwill through soft power is key to reducing the perception of US preemption and aggression. That’s key to burden-sharing to maintain hegemony

BARBER 03 U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times
[Lionel, “The war on terror is about values as well as weapons,” Financial Times, 12/19, lexis]

'There is little of lasting consequence that the United States can accomplish in the world without the sustained co-operation of allies and friends in Canada and Europe' The US emerged from the second world war with the most powerful economy, the strongest airforce and navy and the most lethal weapon: the atomic bomb. For half a century, its foreign policy was based on patient containment and nuclear-armed deterrence of the Soviet threat. Successive presidents, from Harry Truman to R s - the United Nations. The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 changed the terms of engagement between the US and the rest of the world. Gone are the doctrines of containment and deterrence. Confronted with the existential threat of radical Islam, rogue states and weapons of mass destruction, President George W. Bush has elevated pre-emptive military action and regime change to be his guiding principles. The counter-strategy is bold, dynamic and risky - especially when matched with Mr Bush's pledge to export freedom and democracy to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other despotic corners of the Middle East. The inescapable, slightly scary conclusion is that the Bush doctrine is a neo-conservative blueprint to reshape the world in America's image. Yet there is another side to US foreign policy. The passage cited above, on the importance of allies, could have come from the mouth of Truman. In fact, it appears in the same national security strategy document, published in September 2002, that advocated pre-emptive military action in America's self-defence. The tensions between unilateral impulse and multilateral preference have co-existed since the US consciously assumed the role of superpower at the onset of the cold war. But they have become more acute under Mr Bush. This is partly because of his rhetoric but mainly because he has put military power at the centre of his national security strategy. Is the US becoming mesmerised by its military power and blind to its limitations? Or can the administration sustain its revolutionary course, enabling an America Unbound to emerge? "The (Bush) administration put American power at the centre of its strategy," say Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, authors of a recent study*. But, they add, that power derives from two sources: unparalleled military strength and the US's embodiment of freedom and democracy. The war on terrorism is about values as much as the lethal pursuit of Islamic extremists. One senior US official likens the challenge to defeating fascism in the 1930s, or even crushing the anarchists of the late 19th century who assassinated US President William McKinley, Tsar Alexander III and numerous lesser victims. It is a campaign without mercy prosecuted on US terms. There will be no more wars fought by committee, as in Kosovo. The mission determines the coalition. Nato is not needed for toppling the Taliban. But its troops are expected to turn up for post-combat peacekeeping in Afghanistan. The US's go-it-alone strategy reached its apogee in the invasion of Iraq. Here was a war fought without the support of traditional allies, principally Canada, France and Germany; without backing from the United Nations Security Council; and without conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein controlled biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that posed an imminent threat to the US. Since the summer, the White House has made some effort to repair the diplomatic damage. The appointment of James Baker, secretary of state in Mr Bush's father's administration, as special envoy to deal with Iraqi debt could foreshadow efforts to use the capture of Mr Hussein to bridge divisions with Europe. But the overall mood remains unrepentant. The decision explicitly to bar countries that opposed the war from postwar construction contracts reflects the president's post-September 11 slogan: "Either you are with us or against us." Beyond recrimination and reconciliation, however, a more subtle debate is under way. At its heart lies the E-word: the notion that the US is evolving, willy-nilly, into an empire, with all its trappings and temptations. The US remains the pre-eminent power, despite the rise of China. But the commitments implied by the global war on terrorism are worryingly open-ended. "Look at the ubiquity of the world's problems compared with the need to focus American power to be effective," says Steven Miller, director of the international security programme at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School. "We can handle only so many crises at once." He criticises the way the invasion of Iraq deflected attention from North Korea's seemingly successful effort to build a nuclear bomb, a far more pressing threat to US national security. Dimitri Simes, director of the Nixon Centre, a Washington think-tank, warned recently in Foreign Affairs against "global social engineering". Driving away authoritarian nations such as China and Saudi Arabia could undermine the struggle against terrorism and WMD proliferation. International crusading, he argues, cannot be pursued on the cheap. The risk is of "overreach" - that the US will take on too many commitments or find itself unable to withdraw from its many obligations, just as the Spanish empire did in the 17th century. Its dominance also risks counter-reactions among other nations or combinations of states. These dangers were the subject of a private study ordered by the office of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, in 2001. At that time, Mr Rumsfeld was worried about foreign entanglements. He wanted to reduce deployments in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sinai desert, Saudi Arabia and other isolated places in the Gulf. He was also searching for lessons on the rise and fall of the great empires. The panel's findings were not entirely reassuring: "Military power by itself is never enough to sustain your predominance. The US cannot avoid history." Paul Kennedy, the Yale University professor who wrote a bestseller about "imperial overstretch" in the late-1980s, feels vindicated. While US defence spending has been strongly increasing over the past years, it is struggling to keep up with overseas commitments. He estimates that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have already cost Dollars 150bn (Pounds 86bn, Euros 122bn) including the recently voted congressional reconstruction package of Dollars 87bn. By contrast, the first Gulf war cost Dollars 7bn, thanks to extensive contributions from allies, mainly Japan, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Whatever the political misgivings in Washington, the practical case for burden-sharing is unanswerable. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior State Department official, argues that superpower dependence on inter-national goodwill is a fact of life.

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The collapse of leadership causes a multipolar vacuum leading to multiple scenarios for extinction

Ferguson – Professor of History at New York University – 2004 [Niall, “A world without power,” Foreign Policy 143, p. 32-39, July-August]

<So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more populous--roughly 20 times more--so friction between the world's disparate "tribes" is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. Technology has upgraded destruction, too, so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it. For more than two decades, globalization--the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital--has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. The reversal of globalization--which a new Dark Age would produce--would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11 devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai--would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of AIDS and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. If the United States retreats from global hegemony--its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier--its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity--a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.>

The US will inevitably intervene in Africa. It’s only a question of now or later when we have to intervene to alleviate a humanitarian crisis

Timothy Sisk, United States Influence of Peace, s in contemporary ethnic conflicts and the means for their management or resolution. July 1996. “Future US Engagement onald Reagan, recognised that US power was exercised most effectively through alliances and multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Nato and - at time in Africa” http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/early/USAfrica1.html

Declining resources for engagement, such as development aid and diplomatic presence, coupled with a fatigue borne of the apparent intractability or complexity of conflicts in Africa, has led to a situation in which it is difficult for policymakers to engage meaningfully in preventing or ending armed conflicts. The failure of U.S.-led humanitarian intervention to restore long-term peace in Somalia has only reinforced trends of declining engagement. Even in states such as Liberia, which has strong historical ties to the U.S., the willingness of the world's only superpower to help bring serious armed conflict to an end has waned. U.S. military intervention to quell the fighting, urged by some but opposed by others, appears unlikely. Without the threat that each and every minor conflict could escalate into a nuclear exchange with the Soviets -- a concern that drove engagement during the Cold War -- the U.S. role in Africa has diminished measurably. U.S. engagement in complex conflicts and their humanitarian tragedies, such as in Liberia, has narrowed to simply evacuating foreign nationals when conditions approach anarchy. Many analysts of Africa are alarmed because such U.S. disengagement is shortsighted and will have deleterious repercussions in years to come. When conflict management efforts are insufficient, small-scale crises have the potential to grow more serious and escalate into large-scale humanitarian tragedies that will eventually -- and at a much higher cost -- spur the United States into action, if only to alleviate civilian suffering through humanitarian intervention. Many observers note with concern that, since 1992, short-term humanitarian aid to Africa has been approximately double the amount of long-term development aid. Armed conflicts also cause ripple effects throughout subregions in Africa and frustrate the promotion of U.S. objectives in neighboring states. Moreover, opportunities for investment and trade are disrupted by armed conflict which then prohibits the development of commercial ties that could reinforce the overall rationale for more extensive engagement.

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Observation 4: Solvency

Water for the Poor has a proven success record in countries throughout the world. The coordination of groups such as the Peace Corps, CDC and Army Corps of Engineers makes the US key

Cheryl Pellerin, USINFO Staff Writer. 6/7/07. “U.S. Boosts Developing Nations' Access to Safe Water, Sanitation; "Water for the Poor" report sets out strategies for regions worldwide” http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/35861.html

WATER FOR THE POOR The law directs the State Department, with USAID and other U.S. government agencies, to develop a strategy "to provide affordable and equitable access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries," and help those countries develop sound water management policies and practices. … [continues]
With U.S. government funding in 2006, many countries made progress toward improving their populations' access to clean drinking water and sanitation. The work of 290 Peace Corps volunteers gave nearly 276,000 people access to improved water and sanitation in 805 communities in Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Kiribati, Mali, Panama and Paraguay. In 18 countries in Africa and Asia, U.S. government partners sold about 23,000 bottles of chlorine solution - enough to give 12.5 million people two liters of safe drinking water a day. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) designed this "Safe Water System," and it has been scaled up with USAID and other donor support and ongoing CDC technical assistance. More than 200,000 people in 129 communities of Burkina Faso received clean water for schoolchildren and residents as part of a joint initiative between the Millennium Challenge Corporation and USAID to improve the health and educational status of rural girls. (See related article.) In Iraq, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built 449,200 cubic meters of daily water-treatment capacity, potentially benefiting 2.2 million people. Besides the regional strategies, the Water for the Poor Act requires goals, benchmarks and timetables for the work being done in developing countries, and methods to assess what is needed most in each country and whether interventions already implemented are working.

$50 million should be provided to water & sanitation in Africa

Donald M. Payne, a Representative Congressman and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global
Health. 5/16/07. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives One Hundred Tenth Congress First Session. http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/35429.pdf

Now we have heard about how much it would cost to clear it all up and that is the optimum but we are just talking about a minimum. We can forget what the optimum is. But $71 million that was recommended for 2006, although in the Foreign Operations bill that the Congress passed we suggested that not less than $200 million should be made available for drinking water supply projects and related activities of which no less than $50 million should be made available for programs in Africa. So I just wondered if you could explain the substantial decrease in the administration’s funding request. Now we know that it is the Congress that appropriates. However, you also know that the budget comes from the White House, and we have to work within the framework. So I am just wondering, am I missing something? Either one of you could try to give us a justification of why your department decided to reduce the request for this particular item

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The Water for the Poor Act immediately solves the short term problems of water scarcity while setting up the framework for the future. By 2015 the number of people suffering from water scarcity will be cut in half.

Wilson Center. Event Summary. 2/14/06. No Author. “Next Steps for The Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act (VIDEO)” http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event_summary&event_id=168642

"Water is crucial for life, but it is not crucial for policymaking,” stated U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the primary House of Representatives author of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 1, 2005. Honoring the late Democratic senator from Illinois who was an early advocate of worldwide access to safe water, the Act enhances the role of global water and sanitation programs in U.S. foreign policy by authorizing the provision of foreign aid for promoting these efforts, and also by directing the secretary of state to create a comprehensive strategy for the development of international programs that increase safe water and sanitation access. 

Hitting Close to Home

Six of the seven fastest growing states in America are water stressed. Major metropolitan areas like Sacramento and New York City still lack water meters. Drawing on his experiences working with constituents, Blumenauer said he had “yet to visit a community that isn’t concerned about storm water, sanitation, safe drinking water, issues of equity, and long-term supply.” Emphasizing the importance of assessing the costs and consequences of water consumption and investments in water and sanitation infrastructures, he noted that choices of water allocation and management can have “a profound impact on the environment and the economy.” 

Although the Water for the Poor Act focuses on international water and sanitation programs, Blumenauer emphasized how lessons drawn from developing, funding, and implementing the legislation could also help strengthen water and sanitation practices in the United States. “We must lose no opportunity to drive home why struggling to provide access to safe drinking water and deal with sanitation is a critical national and international problem,” he said. 

Linking Water and Development

Global lack of access to safe water and sanitation is the “preventable tragedy of our time,” Blumenauer said. “It is the poor who pay the price.” Twin challenges confront the world’s poor, who must spend a large percentage of their income to procure often unsanitary water and also face pollution and health risks from lack of adequate sanitation services. Furthermore, limited access to water often leads to extensive time spent traveling in search of the precious resource. “Who knows the price that is being paid by millions of people who are leaving their village to go in search of safe drinking water?” he said. In developing countries, girls commonly forego education to devote more time and effort to securing water. Consequently, the search for water in developing nations is “the picture of lost opportunity,” said Blumenauer. 

The Water for the Poor Act specifically addresses linkages among water security, effective sanitation programs, and development efforts. According to Blumenauer, a primary goal is to lay foundations for low-tech, high-impact interventions, which would then be supplemented by long-term projects to build capacity in target communities. The bill’s passage heightened awareness about the need for investments in water and sanitation programs as a crucial component of sustainable development. Blumenauer also noted that the bill’s framework presents an “opportunity to coordinate with other public and privately funded initiatives.” 

Implementation: Next Steps and Future Challenges

Outlining next steps for implementation of the Water for the Poor Act, Blumenauer noted that by June 1, 2006, the Department of State must coordinate with myriad federal agencies to create a “comprehensive, comprehensible strategy.” The Act then calls for this strategy to be refined and extended to complement the United States’ commitment to meeting the 2015 targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A second key step will involve alignment of water and sanitation initiatives undertaken by federal agencies and other key stakeholders. Blumenauer expressed confidence that this alignment process can help resolve remaining differences about prioritization and resource allocation. 

A further component of implementation will be to design a strategy that takes into account specific concerns relevant to water, sanitation, and development linkages. Following the presentation, one audience member highlighted how a 2001 report from the Water and Sanitation Program revealed the importance of sensitivity to gender and poverty within development projects. The discussion also focused on the importance of enhancing water and sanitation capacity in urban areas, which are often the drivers of population growth and centers for health risks. But urban areas also present an opportunity to “capitalize on the expenditures, on the infrastructure that’s there,” Blumenauer said. 

Looking Forward Toward Cooperation

To meet the targets set by the MDGs, “230,000 people a day have to get access to safe drinking water...400,000 people a day have to get access to safe sanitation. And we’re behind schedule,” said Blumenauer, adding that, despite any hurdles, “it is within our capacity to cut these numbers in half by 2015.” To extend the efforts embodied in the Water for the Poor Act, Blumenauer called on policymakers, donors, and members of the non-governmental community to “harness the energy, extend the story, [and] look creatively” in future endeavors. 



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The plan creates sustainable solutions. The Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) consults communities individually to find the best approach for their needs.

Erik R. Peterson. Senior vice president at CSIS and Director. 9/30/05. “Addressing Our Global Water Future” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sandia National Laboratories. Pg. 4 http://water.csis.org/050928_ogwf.pdf

Participatory principles strengthen sustainable solutions. Effective water planning and management at local and regional levels requires a broad and integrated collaboration, including farmers, urban developers, environmentalists, industrialists, policy makers, citizens, and others, all within an open and participatory framework. Water improvement and management projects conducted at local and regional levels that promote the principles of multi-stakeholder processes and open communication can play a dual role as democracy-building projects. The foundation for any self-sustaining strategy that addresses water challenges is an open, participatory system that engages all relevant stakeholders—farmers, urban developers, environmentalists, civil society, nongovernmental organizations, local to national government representatives, and others. This approach must strike a balance between economic, social and environmental interests. The concept of “integrated water resource management” (IWRM) is heralded as a means to overcome the traditional sectoral treatment of water. IWRM seeks to give consideration to the multiple uses of the resources. IWRM strategies must consider both the physical dimensions of a source of water—location, type, quantity, and quality—as well as the nonphysical—the interests, habits, education levels, cultural predilections, preferences and objectives of the broad array of water users, as well as broader ecological, political and economic goals imposed by society. A framework to move towards effective IWRM must ensure the concurrent development and strengthening of three elements: (1) an enabling political and regulatory environment; (2) appropriate institutional roles for all stakeholders; and (3) practical management tools and approaches drawn from policy, technology and economics and appropriate for the circumstances in which they are applied. Effective integrated water resource management relies upon community participation. The principles of this approach can be applied at any level and at any scale, depending on the circumstances. As such, participatory, integrated water projects can improve gender equality, foster democratic institutions, and improve tenuous or uncertain cross-border relations.

IWRM solves best – solutions are targeted and fits communities' needs – this empowers people instead of imposing on them

Erik R. Peterson. Senior vice president at CSIS and Director. 9/30/05. “Addressing Our Global Water Future” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sandia National Laboratories. Pg. 4 http://water.csis.org/050928_ogwf.pdf

Community engagement and local participation is a key component of establishing an integrated water management strategy. Traditional, top-down management strategies often promote a narrow range of technical and policy solutions that do not reflect the nuances of a local situation. Such a model is based on the assumption that practices are universally applicable and that what works in one place will work in another. In practice, local techniques for water management are replaced rather than supplemented (Johnson et al. 2001). Issues associated with local natural resources are often more clearly and easily identified by the local community. The creation of an open and participatory framework gives communities an outlet to communicate indigenous knowledge, preventing the implementation of ineffective practices. Furthermore, involvement in the management of natural resources may foster community empowerment and capacity building, which can further strengthen sustainable solutions.